The Humboldt County Association of Governments heard a conceptual plan Sept. 17 for a regional network of hydrogen fueling stations serving transit buses and freight vehicles across an eight-county North State region. The presentation came from RebelGroup Americas under an analysis funded through a Caltrans rural planning assistance grant, according to the HCAOG meeting recording.\n\nThe study used transit and freight data to model candidate networks and explore where stations might be located. Its candidate set included existing transit fueling locations as well as sites along major interstates and freight corridors. The models repeatedly identified locations associated with Humboldt Transit Authority, Redding, Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Nevada and the Redwood Coast, presenters said. Those are planning scenarios, not selected construction sites.\n\nThe analysis assumed, for modeling purposes, that buses would convert to low-floor, extended-range hydrogen fuel-cell electric buses. It also assumed stations would be at least 20 miles apart and that a station would be financially feasible at more than 300 kilograms of hydrogen demand per day. A presenter said that threshold came from industry input on the typical size of a liquid-hydrogen station considered financially viable.\n\nThe 300-kilogram benchmark is roughly equivalent to six full fills for a transit bus, based on the presenters’ estimate of about 50 kilograms per fill. But presenters said stations below the threshold could still appear in a more spread-out network as temporary or alternative station models, serving as an incremental bridge as transit or freight demand grows.\n\nThe consultants emphasized that the work is a planning study intended to help coordinate potential project sponsors and inform future public or private investment decisions. They also cited long distances between agencies, vehicle availability, workforce needs and challenges in sharing stations between transit and freight as implementation barriers. The study did not model additional stations to provide network-level redundancy if a station serving a route or transit agency failed.\n\nThe official HCAOG agenda listed the hydrogen siting analysis as a presentation, with a study summary and final deliverable attached. The meeting record does not identify a final site, committed construction funding, construction schedule or agency assigned to build the network. HCAOG staff said the modeling was complete but the draft presented remained subject to editorial comments before a final version was delivered to Caltrans. Results were also scheduled to be shared at the North State Transit Symposium in Redding later in September.